The Most Bizarre Things People Hold World Records For

Forget longest fingernails, fastest 100-meter sprint, and deepest scuba dive — those are all incredible feats (except maybe for the fingernails thing, that's just gross), but they don't really compare to some of the truly bizarre things people will do in the name of being a world record holder. Some of these incredible feats of weirdness, cringe-worthiness, and just plain stupidity seem to have been designed specifically for the Guinness Book of World Records — we can't really fathom, for example, that people are constantly competing to overturn the world record for "Most drink cans crushed by hand while holding an egg in 30 seconds," but what do we know?

Here are some of the most bizarre world records currently on the books, just in case you decide someday that you'd like to achieve fame and fortune in the stupidest or weirdest way possible. And if not, you can always dream up something wacky that no one's ever tried before. How about "Fastest mile on a pogo stick while juggling?" Oh wait, someone already did that. Too slow.

Because putting spoons all over your body is something that ordinary humans often do when bored, someone decided to go for the world record because ... of something. But incredibly, this doesn't seem to be just one of those records someone with an excess of silverware dreamed up one night while on a drunken bender — the current record holder actually broke someone else's 2011 record. The first record holder, a kickboxing trainer named Etibar Elchyev, claimed he was able to attach 53 spoons to his chest because his body had magnetic properties. (If you have magnetic superpowers and you can kickbox, why aren't you wearing a cape and fighting crime instead of setting pointless world records with silverware?) According to Guinness, in 2016 Dalibor Jablanovic decided he was totally going to one-up Magneto and put 79 spoons all over his body, and now that's the record.

We've established that "longest fingernails" is kind of a gross record. You might wonder how someone goes about daily life with two handfuls of foot-long fingernails. But if that wasn't gross enough for you, here's another one: According to Guinness, in 2007 an Indian man named Victor Anthony set the record for "longest ear hair." Now, you can just imagine what goes on prior to someone deciding to go for the world record for "most disgusting-ever thing that other people frequently tell you is disgusting and generally agree ought to be taken care of with a simple trimming device."

"Honey, your ear hair is getting a little long. Maybe you should trim it."

"Stop nagging me."

Fast-forward 25 years: world's longest ear hair.

Anthony worked as a headmaster but is now retired, although evidently long ear hair has always been kind of a thing for him. His students used to call him the "ear-haired teacher," which is not terribly creative, but points for accuracy.

Smashing cinder blocks with your head? That's so yesterday. A real martial arts champion has to find new and interesting things to crush with random body parts.

According to Food and Wine, in 2017 Pakistani martial artist Muhammad Rashid decided to teach a bunch of beer cans a lesson by beating them to death with his fist. Now on its own, that's actually kind of boring because any martial artist worth his sash could do that, and also most drunk guys. But here's the trick: He had to smash as many (full) beer cans as possible in 30 seconds while also holding an egg in his smashing hand. When the clock stopped, the egg had to be completely intact. Most drunk guys probably could not do that. Rashid's record was 29 — nearly one per second, which is pretty danged impressive.

The thing is, this particular feat sounds original until you realize that it's not — film star Jackie Chan once performed the same basic stunt, except with concrete instead of beer cans, which is way more badass. Of course we're talking about a dude who's known for sliding down a 21-story skyscraper without a safety harness and crawling backward over hot coals, which is a pretty tough act to follow. Still, beer cans? Diet Pepsi would have at least been less smelly.

Whoever dreamed up this one gets credit for innovation and extra credit for safety. In this stunt, people line up on mattresses and topple over backward, hitting other people, who also fall over backward, hence the whole "dominoes" thing. So participants get to be a part of a record-breaking stunt that includes the most beloved element of any record-breaking stunt (the potential for great personal injury), only there's a mattress between each record-breaker and the hard, concrete floor.

According to Guinness, the stunt was set up by two Chinese bedding brands called Stylution Int'l and Ayd Group, and the total number of participants was 2,016. That nearly doubled the previous record (yes, there was one) of 1,200, which was set just four months prior in Maryland. After the stunt the mattresses were presumably unsaleable, so 300 of them were donated to a local charity. No word on what happened to the other 1,716, but it's China, so you're probably sleeping on one of them. 

Incidentally, this is not the only human domino record on the books — there's also a record for human dominoes without mattresses: 10,267 people achieved that one in China back in 2010. Hopefully they at least had the good sense to find some good, soft, ground, otherwise ouch.

Time to get straight-faced for a minute. Testicular cancer is a real thing and every guy ought to know how to do a self-check. But not in public because that's just awkward.

Shockingly, the world record for "Largest simultaneous self-check for testicular cancer" was seemingly underreported by the national news media, so some pretty tantalizing details are missing, like did everyone have to self-check while standing in the same room? And what sort of attire was required? And how did they make totally sure everyone was self-checking simultaneously? These are all important questions, and great reporting needs answers.

Sadly, the only real details are in the world record itself, which states that the feat was achieved by 208 participants. Now granted, that's considerably fewer than 2,016 human dominoes or 4,605 kids dressed like Ghandi, but even dressing up like Ghandi is about a million times more glamorous than a testicular cancer self-check, so let's cut these guys a little sack slack.

The event was led by a certified urologist, who could probably fill in all the missing blanks if we knew who he was. Sadly, we'll all have to live the rest of our lives not knowing exactly what 208 guys simultaneously investigating themselves looks like.

If you search the Guinness website for "snake," you get a lot of boring hits like "longest snake ever in captivity" and "most snakes milked," the latter of which is at least weird enough to be interesting but isn't exactly thrilling. There's really nothing in the way of viper-related daredevil-type records, which when you think about it probably has a fairly rational explanation. It seems likely that Guinness decided it was best not to encourage people to do stunts that are stupidly dangerous, although evidently chopping up watermelons with a machete on your friend's stomach and/or annihilating one's tear ducts is totally cool.

Happily (or unhappily, depending on whether your luck holds out), Guinness will still give you credit for putting rattlesnakes in your mouth if that's what you're into, although you might not have your accomplishment emblazoned across their homepage or anything. According to Huffington Post, the current record for "most live rattlesnakes held in mouth" belongs to Jackie Bibby, who stuffed the tails of 13 live rattlesnakes into his mouth. In order to achieve the record, he had to hold them there for 10 seconds and he wasn't allowed to get bit. He succeeded, and now other people will almost certainly come along and try to stuff 14 live rattlesnakes into their mouths so they can get their names printed in a book, too. Thank you, Guinness, for making our world a better place.